Is the whole course really free?

Yes. All 30 lessons are on this site with nothing to sign up for. We sell langNote, a separate paid app, and every lesson suggests using it — that suggestion is the only thing being sold here.

Can you really learn Hangul in two days?

Yes, and that is not a marketing claim — it is what the system was designed for. Days 1 and 2 teach the letters, the syllable blocks, the final consonants and the three sound-change rules. What takes longer is reading fluently, which comes from volume, not from more study.

Can you actually learn Korean in 30 days?

You can complete A1 and reach into A2: a real conversation about yourself, your family, your day and what you did at the weekend. You cannot become fluent or follow a drama without subtitles. The box at the top lists both halves.

Do I have to learn 반말 and 합쇼체 too?

Not in this course. Day 3 explains the three levels and tells you to use 해요체 for everything — it is polite enough for a stranger and warm enough for a friend's parents, and it is what adults use with each other. The other two are day 31 material.

How much time does it take each day?

25–35 minutes. Days 2, 5, 11 and 15 are the heavy ones, and days 7, 14, 21 and 30 are review days that run closer to 40 minutes because they are tests rather than new material.

What comes after day 30?

Day 30 names the order: 반말 first, then modifying clauses, then 합쇼체, then the honorific system properly, then the connectors that give speech its texture.

30 Days of Korean

Last revised: 2026-08 · 30 lessons · about 16 hours in total

Thirty lessons, 25–35 minutes each. Korean has an unusual shape: the writing system is the cheapest part and the grammar is the expensive one. Hangul was designed on purpose, in 1443, to be learnable in a morning — so days 1 and 2 teach the whole alphabet, and from day 3 this course drops romanisation entirely. The other 28 days are spent on the things English gives you no instinct for: particles, verb-final word order, and choosing a politeness level before you can open your mouth.

What 30 days does and does not get you

On day 30 you will be able to

Read any Korean word aloud, correctly, from day 2 onward — not transliterate it, read it.
Introduce yourself and your family and talk for five minutes without stopping.
Use 해요체, the politeness level adults actually use with each other all day.
Order food, take a taxi, ask directions and shop without knowing the word for the object.
Say what you did yesterday, what you want to do, and what you have to do instead.

You will still not be able to

Use 반말, the casual speech level. You will be offered it by friends and this course does not teach you to accept — day 30 names it as the first thing to learn next.
Produce 합쇼체 (-습니다), the formal level you will hear in announcements and at work. You will recognise it.
Get 은/는 versus 이/가 right consistently. Nobody does after a month; day 5 says so explicitly and tells you to keep talking anyway.
Follow two Koreans talking at native speed, or a drama without subtitles.
Build long modifying clauses — the -(으)ㄴ/는 forms that let Korean pack a sentence in front of a noun.

What this is, and who wrote it

We make langNote, a paid app that turns your own study material into practice. This course is free, complete, and works on paper or on a screen with nothing installed — the lessons below are the whole thing, not a sample with the good parts removed.

The reason it exists is that it was written for a real 30-day attempt at Korean, and material written to actually be used is different from material written to rank. Every lesson ends with a note on how to run that day's page through the app, because that is how the author studied it. Ignore those boxes and the course still works.

The daily routine (20–30 minutes)

Read the lesson — say every example out loud. (8 min)
Do the exercises and check the answers. (5 min)
Today's 10 sentences, out loud, three times each. (5 min)
Practise the day's dialogue or drill. (7 min)
Optional: one conversation on the day's topic. (5 min)

One rule: never read silently, and never lean on romanisation after day 2. Romanisation hides the ㅓ/ㅗ distinction, invents an r/l choice Korean does not have, and lets your eyes skip the Hangul you just spent two days learning.

Two days for the alphabet, twenty-eight for the grammar

Hangul is the only major writing system with a birthday and a design document. The vowels are built from three shapes — a person, the earth, the sun — and the consonants are diagrams of your mouth making the sound. Nothing in it is arbitrary, which is why it goes in fast and stays. By the end of day 2 you can read any Korean word on any sign or menu. French learners cannot say that after thirty days.

What you get for free after that: no gender, no cases in the European sense, no articles, no plurals, no tones, and verbs that do not conjugate for person. 가요 means I go, you go, he goes and they go.

What you pay for instead: the verb goes at the end of every sentence, particles mark what each noun is doing, and every verb ending encodes how polite you are being. Days 5 (은/는 vs 이/가), 11 (word order), 15 (에 vs 에서) and 26 (the past tense) are where this course spends its weight.

The 30 lessons

Each lesson is a full page: tables, dialogues, pronunciation notes, exercises and answers. Start at day 1 — the later lessons assume the earlier ones.

Week 1 — Hangul, then your first sentences

Read anything by day 2, then greetings, 이에요/예요, particles and verbs.

Week 2 — Numbers, family and word order

Two number systems, counters, 을/를, and the verb at the end.

Week 3 — Places, plans and permission

에 vs 에서, directions, transport, shopping, want / can / must.

Week 4 — Irregulars, the past and real speech

Irregular verbs, 안 vs 못, the past tense, connecting sentences.

Questions

Is the whole course really free?: Yes. All 30 lessons are on this site with nothing to sign up for. We sell langNote, a separate paid app, and every lesson suggests using it — that suggestion is the only thing being sold here.
Can you really learn Hangul in two days?: Yes, and that is not a marketing claim — it is what the system was designed for. Days 1 and 2 teach the letters, the syllable blocks, the final consonants and the three sound-change rules. What takes longer is reading fluently, which comes from volume, not from more study.
Can you actually learn Korean in 30 days?: You can complete A1 and reach into A2: a real conversation about yourself, your family, your day and what you did at the weekend. You cannot become fluent or follow a drama without subtitles. The box at the top lists both halves.
Do I have to learn 반말 and 합쇼체 too?: Not in this course. Day 3 explains the three levels and tells you to use 해요체 for everything — it is polite enough for a stranger and warm enough for a friend's parents, and it is what adults use with each other. The other two are day 31 material.
How much time does it take each day?: 25–35 minutes. Days 2, 5, 11 and 15 are the heavy ones, and days 7, 14, 21 and 30 are review days that run closer to 40 minutes because they are tests rather than new material.
What comes after day 30?: Day 30 names the order: 반말 first, then modifying clauses, then 합쇼체, then the honorific system properly, then the connectors that give speech its texture.

langNote is a paid subscription and this course recommends it. The 30 lessons are free and complete either way.